This thesis deals with determining the typology of rural areas on the basis of internationally\ud
established methodological approaches. The attempt to define the rural areas in Slovenia is\ud
made on the basis of two selected methodological approaches. The first analysis employed the\ud
OECD methodology of classification of urban-rural areas. In order to adapt this methodology\ud
to Slovenian territory, another, indicator-based analysis was conducted, where by the\ud
indicators were selected according to a previously created typology of rural areas and\ud
according to Slovene legal bases. After the review and analysis of the indicators, individual\ud
types of rural areas were defined. The classification of rural areas was carried out in two\ud
steps. Firstly, three types of areas were determined: typical rural areas, transitional rural areas\ud
and areas of urban character. In the second step, areas were divided into demographically\ud
restricted areas, structure-restricted areas, moderately structure-restricted areas and\ud
predominantly developed areas. The comparison of these two approaches to defining rural\ud
areas showed that the urban-rural classification is more suitable for Slovenian conditions and\ud
that the differences between the two approaches are minimal. In both cases, the majority of\ud
areas are classified as intermediate and transitional rural areas. On the national level, both\ud
classifications show similar results. All urban areas are located close to the main highway\ud
cross with its centre in Ljubljana, the capital of the country. Rural areas as well as\ud
intermediate and transitional rural areas are scattered over the rest of the country’s territory\ud
without any specific pattern. Based on the comparison of the two classifications, we found out\ud
that it is impossible to define homogeneous areas on the basis of only one indicator and that a\ud
combination of several indicators is necessary
